When Should You Buy Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE:ADS)?

Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE:ADS), which is in the it business, and is based in United States, led the NYSE gainers with a relatively large price hike in the past couple of weeks. As a mid-cap stock with high coverage by analysts, you could assume any recent changes in the company’s outlook is already priced into the stock. However, could the stock still be trading at a relatively cheap price? Let’s examine Alliance Data Systems’s valuation and outlook in more detail to determine if there’s still a bargain opportunity.

See our latest analysis for Alliance Data Systems

Want to help shape the future of investing tools? Participate in a short research study and receive a 6-month subscription to the award winning Simply Wall St research tool (valued at $60)!

What is Alliance Data Systems worth?

Good news, investors! Alliance Data Systems is still a bargain right now. In this instance, I’ve used the price-to-earnings (PE) ratio given that there is not enough information to reliably forecast the stock’s cash flows. I find that Alliance Data Systems’s ratio of 10.34x is below its peer average of 26.43x, which suggests the stock is undervalued compared to the IT industry. What’s more interesting is that, Alliance Data Systems’s share price is quite volatile, which gives us more chances to buy since the share price could sink lower (or rise higher) in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market.

Can we expect growth from Alliance Data Systems?

NYSE:ADS Future Profit January 29th 19
NYSE:ADS Future Profit January 29th 19

Future outlook is an important aspect when you’re looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company’s future expectations. Alliance Data Systems’s earnings growth are expected to be in the teens in the upcoming years, indicating a solid future ahead. This should lead to robust cash flows, feeding into a higher share value.

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? Since ADS is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to accumulate more of your holdings in the stock. With a positive outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as capital structure to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation.

Are you a potential investor? If you’ve been keeping an eye on ADS for a while, now might be the time to enter the stock. Its buoyant future outlook isn’t fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means it’s not too late to buy ADS. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed buy.

Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on Alliance Data Systems. You can find everything you need to know about Alliance Data Systems in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Alliance Data Systems, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

Advertisement